How to Use Yoga For Stress Relief

Stress affects the mind, body, and spirit. While small amounts of stress are good, too much stress can cause physical and mental dis-ease. How can you practice yoga for stress relief from a Christian perspective?

Now more than ever, it is crucial to cultivate healthy ways of managing stress in order to boost immunity, establish optimal health, and improve your overall sense of well-being.

Yoga is known to reduce stress and tension in the body and mind. This powerful practice combines physical postures, mindful breathing, and meditation to create inner calm and a sense of relaxation.

In addition to yoga for stress relief, yoga has the potential to reawaken us to presence, heightening our awareness and reconnecting us with the present moment. Keep reading to learn how you can use yoga to relieve stress from a Christian perspective and connect with the Creator.

Does Yoga Help Relieve Stress?

Yoga is widely known for its many health benefits and its ability to reduce the effects of stress and tension in the body. The ancient practice combines embodiment practices, breath work, and meditation techniques to create a sense of calm and peace.

In a previous blog post, we discussed the mental & emotional benefits of yoga specifically for Christians, but here I will share several ways that you can use yoga for stress relief:

Physical Relaxation: Yoga postures for stress relief strengthen and stretch the muscles in the body, balance the nervous system, stabilize the mind, and produce an overall state of relaxation.

Nervous system regulation: The slow and deliberate breath practices of yoga trigger the body’s relaxation response, calming the nervous system, and reducing stress hormones.

Strengthened Mind-Body Connection: By helping us to observe sensations in our body and to watch the thoughts in our mind, yoga grounds us in the present moment, and anxiety associated with thoughts of the future or the past begins to fade away.

Mindfulness: Through a regular yoga practice we can become mindful of what causes us stress: feelings, emotions, thoughts, reactions, and responses. We can learn to manage our thoughts and to respond to stressful situations thoughtfully and intentionally, instead of reacting impulsively.

Stress Hormone Regulation: Yoga for stress relief reduces stress hormones like cortisol, while at the same time promoting the release of mood-boosting hormones in the body including brain messengers such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

While it is not possible (or even beneficial) to eliminate all stress, yoga can help manage the negative effects of stress. Regular practice can lead to increased resilience, better coping strategies, and an overall sense of relaxation and well-being, making it a valuable component of a holistic approach to our health and well-being.

The Impact of Stress On Your Health

Chronic stress takes a toll on your body. In fact, chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of death including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide. The American Psychological Association explains,

“The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that come with it can disrupt almost all of your body’s processes. This can put you at increased risk for a variety of physical and mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, digestive issues, headaches, muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep problems, weight gain, and memory and concentration impairment.”

Chronic stress affects almost every system in your body and contributes to a wide range of physical and mental health issues including but not limited to:

Cardiovascular problems
Weakened immune system
Digestive issues
Mental health (including anxiety, depression, and insomnia)
Weight Gain
Muscle tension & chronic pain conditions
Skin problems:
Impaired cognitive function

Learning to manage stress will not only make you feel better right now but may also protect your health long-term. Regular exercise, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga for stress relief are healthy ways to manage stress and reduce the harmful effects of stress hormones.

Practicing yoga and learning specific yoga postures for stress relief can reduce the negative effects of stress on your health.

The Mental Benefits of Yoga

Yoga is not just a physical practice, but a holistic approach to improving your overall health and well-being. Some of the most powerful mental benefits of yoga include its ability to manage stress, reduce anxiety, build resilience, balance emotions, and improve focus and mental clarity.

Yoga is good for your brain… The meditative aspect of yoga requires focused attention on the present moment improving concentration and mental clarity. This is particularly beneficial in our fast-paced, distracted world. Research shows that yoga and meditation improve executive functions such as reasoning, decision-making, memory, learning, reaction time, and accuracy on tests of mental clarity.

Yoga is good for your mind… Yoga quiets a busy mind and builds resilience. By moving through postures mindfully, yoga teaches us how to navigate stressful situations. Slow, deliberate breathwork practices lower stress hormones which are known to have devastating effects on the body and mind. This helps us to cultivate peace, makes us more adaptable, and fosters resilience in the face of life’s challenges.

Yoga is good for your heart… Yoga teaches us the “art of observation” and helps us to see our emotions in the subtle realm of our hearts. As we become aware of the stressors that affect our emotions, we are allowed to choose how we want to respond rather than react. Yoga also encourages the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin which balances emotions and promotes a positive outlook on life.

Yoga Postures for Stress Relief

Yoga postures not only strengthen and stretch the muscles in the body, but they can also be effective tools to help relieve stress. When done mindfully and with steady, controlled breathing, these postures help calm the mind and release tension in the body.

Some of my favorite yoga postures for stress relief include:

Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana)
Supported Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
Legs Up the Wall Pose (Viparita Karani)
Corpse Pose (Savasana)

Postures alone are not the cure for stress, To maximize these yoga postures for stress relief, they must be approached mindfully and with care. Combining postures with meditation and deep, rhythmic breathing can create a powerful stress-reduction practice, improving both physical and mental well-being.

How Yoga Can Help You Awaken to Presence

“Be where you are, otherwise you will miss your life.” -Buddha

Stress and overwhelm takes you out of the present, but the present moment is where life happens… not in the past; not in the future. Life is happening right here and right now.

Yoga teaches us how to be present and observe what we can see. It’s also a helpful tool that can help us awaken to the presence of God.

When practicing from a Christian perspective, yoga helps us to gather the fullness of who we were created to be: heart, soul, mind, and strength in order to connect and commune with our Creator. This is vital if we are to live the life we are meant to live as followers of Christ! (For more see, What is yoga?)

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Yoga helps us to set aside all distractions and become present in the moment with the intention of drawing near to God.

The practice of yoga teaches us how to be an observer in our body. Practices such as drawing inward, breath-work, posture, and meditation help us to awaken to our inner landscapes- which so often go unnoticed. These practices help Christians to enter into our own inner sanctuaries in order to awaken to the EVER-PRESENT Spirit of God.

Yoga is more than just physical postures or a mental exercise; it’s a holistic journey back to who we were created to be. It points to our ability, as humans, to gather all aspects of ourselves together in order to connect to our true nature and commune with our Creator.